'Art' - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) Paperback – January 1, 1999

nice!

What can I say. This has to be one of my favourite plays of all time! It was also one of the most challenging plays that I prepared for as an amateur actor but ultimately extremely rewarding. Anyone looking for a 'killer' monologue should check out Yvan's 2 and a half page rant in the middle of the play.Add it to your collection!

Sat down and read this over the table with two other friends. By the end of it we sat gaping at what just transpired. A read that leaves a feeling something amazing just happened.

As always Yasmina Reza brings realism into her plays and makes humor out of it. 'Art' is great for any theatre addict's collection.

Brilliant... brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

A++++

EXCELLENT...BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN.

I first saw "Art" performed in London in April of 1997, and it had a profound effect upon me. I did not have the privilege of seeing it with Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Ken Stout, but I did see it with three excellent actors. Since then I have seen in it in various other venues. It is almost actor-proof and doesn't require stars.It is a play that does not read particularly well; it is very talky, and it needs the interpretive actors to carry it along. At times reading it you feel as if this is theater of the absurd, but when you see it performed it isn't; it is realistic, but satiric. It's a play told in very a human and particularized way about friendship, egos, loyalty, communication, esthetics and human nature. Serge buys a more than bland painting; his friend Marc says he hates the painting (partly because he wasn't consulted about the purchase). Marc is unhappy because his friend has turned on him so he seeks the backing of Yvan, a peacemaker and compromiser who says he is moved by the painting, sees or feels resonance in the art, hoping to take a middle ground between the two others. There are speeches to the audience in which characters comment on each other. Arguments blossom out from the painting to every aspect of their friendships. Each of the three men is a different kettle of fish, and it may be their differences that kept them together. At the end Serge makes the supreme act of reconciliation and friendship. The last lines of the play spoken by Marc are moving and telling. He presents an interpretation of the painting and the real meaning of the picture and the play may be "no man is an island." Try to see a flesh and blood acting version of this play. The script doesn't do it justice.

１５年来芸術論を楽しんできたＭａｒｃ、Ｓｅｒｇｅとそれに混ぜてもらっているＹｖａnの三人の芝居。Ｓｅｒｇｅが買い込んだ高価な抽象画が、三人の安定していた関係に波紋を投げる物語。英語への翻訳版でも、繊細な言葉へのこだわりは十分に楽しめる。ただ、芸術は、添え物として扱われているだけ。思い入れも何もない。そういう状況が当たり前のこととして描かれていることには、心安らげない。